


And There Was Only One Runabout

by kingdeath000



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Absolutely grotesque displays of affection, Damar is a depressed fuck, Dukat’s there but only mentioned, Emotional breakdown with little plot, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tooth decay levels of fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29974170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingdeath000/pseuds/kingdeath000
Summary: An attack on Deep Space Nine leaves two visiting representatives stranded in space for a short time. What they do with this time is motivated purely by trauma and love.
Relationships: Damar/Weyoun (Star Trek)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	And There Was Only One Runabout

Damar saw the display of life signs out of the corner of his vision. There were currently two passengers on the runabout.  
Another explosion rocked the vessel, nearly sending him flying against the control board.  
No time left to wait.  
The docking bay was now empty, though it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. He and his guest would have to leave now.  
Sparks erupted from the nearest bulkhead. Damar felt something sharp and heavy slam into the side of his head and he lost balance, stumbling to the floor.  
“Damar!”  
Shaking off the stars in his vision, Damar looked back. He wished in that moment that he had been knocked unconscious.  
_“You?!”_  
The runabout pitched sideways. Weyoun leapt for the controls, rapidly entering navigation commands that would detach the docking bay and allow retreat. Damar pulled himself into the pilot’s seat and let his muscle memory take over, scouring the computer’s data and reading off status listings almost before he knew what he was doing.  
“Shields are at forty-three percent. Diverting power from life support,”  
”The navigation is jammed,” Weyoun reported, “We will have to pilot this thing manually until it gets back online,”  
“Thrusters are still at full,” Damar said.  
The runabout cleared the station. Monitors displayed no immediate threats ahead, only the assassin ships behind. None of them appeared to be giving chase, just focusing their power on deep space nine and whatever it was they wanted there. Damar couldn’t venture a guess.  
A stray shot grazed the hull. From the front viewscreen Damar could see chunks of metal and debris fly from the wound. Warning lights flashed over all monitors. They made his head hurt. Or perhaps that was whatever had hit him earlier.  
“Shields holding at forty-three percent. Navigation is still offline,” he announced, “Thermal regulation is offline, too,”  
“I’m trying to reroute the navigation relay,” Weyoun said, his voice still deceptively calm even under all of this pressure, “You’ll have to do what you can with what power I can give you,”  
Damar took over navigation. There was little he could do but keep the vehicle from colliding with anything. He sucked in breath and realized he had a droning pain coursing up his arm. He looked down. His sleeve was torn and the fabric was staining red.  
Weyoun was manning the engineer’s terminal. He didn’t look terribly scathed himself, except for a frazzled expression. He even wore that with an air of stoicism. It made Damar feel something, but he didn’t know what.  
“You should at least be able to keep us on course!” Weyoun snapped suddenly. Damar’s attention returned to the view screen. He barely managed to turn the runabout in time to avoid a collection of space debris that could have torn it in half.  
Damar didn’t want to say anything but his mouth was apparently intent on letting off steam, “Shame your gods didn’t program you to work better under conditions like these,” the word ‘gods’ had passed from his lips like venom.  
“Be _quiet_ ,” Weyoun shot back, “You can’t even stop your incessant whining in a crisis like this, can you?”  
Another warning light blinked on, almost lost on Damar within the slough of them on the monitors. When he noticed it, his stomach dropped, “The runabout is bleeding power somewhere. Too many things are draining the reserve!”  
“Can you locate the source?”  
Damar looked at Weyoun as if he were a fish in the desert, “You’re the one at the engineer’s panel, you tell me!”  
Weyoun couldn’t hide the look of embarrassment in time. Damar tossed his arms in frustration and rushed over to take Weyoun’s place. Pushing the Vorta out of the way he growled, “Damn idiot. Go pilot if you can’t do anything else,”  
Weyoun looked as if he was going to complain, but apparently thought better of it. He took the pilot’s seat.  
Damar could barely make sense of what Weyoun had been doing on the terminal. Various programs were open that didn’t need to be open, a few with unfinished codes waiting to be entered. Damar had to waste precious time by resetting these entries before he could begin the search for the power drain.  
“You’re never gonna be allowed near an engineering terminal ever again,” Damar grumbled.  
“If only the first engineer I was assigned to had been a better teacher,” Weyoun said.  
He was talking about Damar, of course. When they had first met. It had been right at the start of the alliance, when Damar had still been working in the engineering section on a station outside of Cardassia Prime. The memory brought unexpected pain. 

_“Sir, with all respect, why would a liaison be assigned to engineering?” Damar had asked.  
“Weyoun requested it,” was Gul Dukat’s response.  
“It’s true! I am curious about all manners of Cardassian culture, especially now that we are going to be close friends!” Weyoun said, grinning too ecstatically for Damar’s comfort, “I thought that a hands-on experience with your technology would be a good start,”_

That had been the fifth Weyoun clone. One that Damar didn’t want to think about. Especially not with the ninth clone nearby.  
The computer chirped, having found the location of the drain. Damar wasted no time in cutting it off from the source. “It’s not my fault you’re that unobservant,” he said, throwing a glare over his shoulder.  
Weyoun was silent for so long that Damar thought he had earned a victory in the argument. Then he said, “I can’t imagine you’re doing much good over there when you’re shaking like that,”  
Damar blinked. He _was_ shaking. He hadn’t noticed, much like the fact that blood had nearly soaked his entire sleeve. The adrenaline must have started to wear off. He held his breath and got himself back under control.  
“The temperature regulation is shot,” he said, “And with the power this low we won’t be able to get it back online,”  
“Until...?” Weyoun prompted.  
Damar sighed, “Not ‘until’. We _won’t_ ,”  
“...I see,” Weyoun said slowly, “We are, as they say, dead in space?”  
“The comm system is still online. We can divert enough power there to send out a distress signal. Not a very strong one, though,”  
“You’re bleeding,” Weyoun exclaimed.  
Damar looked at him, “You just noticed that?”  
“Weak eyes,” Weyoun reminded, somehow managing to convey with just two words enough disappointment to make Damar feel stupid for forgetting, “There are medkits stored aboard, aren’t there?”  
“Just keep steering,” Damar said, trying to run the distress signal through the comm while using as little power as possible. It wasn’t easy, and the chill in the air was growing more noticeable by the minute.  
“I’ve halted our course,” Weyoun said.  
Damar turned to the viewscreen. It confirmed that they were, indeed, going nowhere.  
“Oh,”  
“ _Just noticed?_ ” Weyoun asked lowly.  
Damar glowered. Weyoun rose to find a medkit. In his absence, Damar allowed himself the luxury of shivering, slowly typing in the last of the distress signal protocol before sending it out. It took more power than he thought it would, but it wouldn’t kill them. He hoped.  
Weyoun returned shortly. Damar was still standing at the control panel.  
“Sit down, I’ll look at your arm,” Weyoun said. His voice was unerringly sincere. Damar was tempted to stay standing, moving would mean being colder. It would also mean letting his guard down in front of this Vorta, a mistake he hadn’t allowed himself to make since-  
_“He’s activated his termination implant and proved himself to be a worthy Vorta at last,”_  
-In a long time.  
But he began to feel how tired his legs were, so he obeyed and made his way to the bench in the corner. Weyoun extracted a tool and began going over the wound. It stung a little and Damar couldn’t stop himself from flinching away. He expected a remark, at least a glare of silent judgement, but he got neither. Weyoun merely placed a hand under Damar’s elbow to steady him, then continued, much slower. The wound healed quickly, painlessly. Damar swallowed. Weyoun moved on to other scrapes that he had suffered during the attack, ones that had diminished so much to mere background levels of pain that Damar had forgotten them. No amount of cuts or bruises could match the ache he felt in his chest in that moment.  
“Well,” Weyoun said after what felt like several years, “You won’t die,”  
“Too bad,” Damar huffed, “I was looking forward to the chance to rest,”  
Weyoun almost laughed at that. Damar put half of a mark down on his mental tally of victories. “According to what you’ve told me, we will have lots of opportunity to rest until that distress signal gets picked up,”  
“Yeah,” Damar sighed again with a glance to the monitors, “Lots,” 

Damar felt something heavy across his shoulders. Startled, he stood upright. Weyoun reared back, blanket still in his hands.  
“Sometimes I feel you’ve only gotten more and more tense,” he said, “Not that you’ve ever been particularly relaxed,”  
Damar wasn’t sure why he took that as an insult. Perhaps because Weyoun had been the one to say it, “I’m always tense with you around. You’re like a spy-serpent on the wall or something. What’s this for?” he added, gesturing to the blanket.  
“Oh...” Weyoun sounded even more saddened, “You’ve gotten stupider, too,”  
“ _What?_ ”  
“I trust you’ve heard of blankets? They have them on Cardassia, don’t they?”  
Damar shook his head to clear it. The question had come out wrong. He had meant to ask why Weyoun had bothered to bring him the blanket in the first place. Perhaps his head had been hit harder than he thought.  
While he tried to sort out words to say, the blanket was tossed over his shoulders. It did little to stave off the cold, but the weight was comforting. The feeling nearly made him shrug it off again, but that would have been even more foolish. He couldn’t feel the tip of his tail.  
“Any progress on the signal?” Weyoun asked.  
“I’ve been able to extend the range, and the sensors should be functioning,” Damar replied, pausing to keep his teeth from chattering, “But that’s about it,”  
“How much power would it take to extend the range again, in the event that this isn’t strong enough?” Weyoun was peering at the monitor, reminding Damar even more of his earlier comparison to a spy-serpent.  
“We might be able to pull it off, at the cost of some of the runabout’s other functions. Lights, maybe. Aren’t you cold?” Damar asked suddenly.  
“My species is warm blooded, if you’ll recall,” Weyoun answered immediately as if the conversation hadn’t shifted at all, “I was also given an excellent metabolism. One of the perks of a Vorta meant for field supervision. Why don’t you sit back down?”  
“You want me to work on this signal, don’t you?” Damar asked.  
“It won’t do you much good to work on the signal if you’re going to freeze to death,” Weyoun chided.  
The unwavering concern was too much. Damar only wanted to dig his heels in further, “I’ll keep working,”  
“If you wish,” Weyoun sighed.  
The more time Damar spent with the ninth clone - each second of which making him increasingly keen on jumping out an airlock - the more similarities he noticed between him and Weyoun Five. Despite the obvious, of course. The fifth clone had also expressed a baffling interest in Damar’s safety.  
All of those years Damar had spent with Weyoun Five, spent building up their own personal sanctuary behind the back of the alliance, how easily it had been smashed to pieces by one little mistake. One choice, one that he had known full well the consequences to when he made it. One that he had come to regret every waking moment of his life since. One that the subsequent clones had made sure he kept regretting, over and over again.  
Damar let out the breath he’d been holding and shook his head. What had he been thinking of? The way the ninth clone seemed to care more for Damar’s well-being than anybody had since the death of the sixth Weyoun? Yes, that was all, and he was not going to think more on the subject.  
“You are _not_ alright,” Weyoun’s tone was accusatory.  
“What do you care?” The words left his mouth before he knew what he was saying.  
Weyoun huffed, then walked back to the storeroom. Damar was glad to be alone.  
Fortunately, the amount of power that it would take to increase the signal again wasn’t too high. He tried entering the security bypass to tap into the reserve, but the process was agonizingly slow. His fingers were numb. He hit a wrong key, cursed, retyped it. It didn’t work. The bypass required a higher security level. He thought briefly about breaking the screen.  
Something soft and heavy hit Damar in the side of his head. Damar caught it, a bundle of blankets.  
“Sit down,” Weyoun ordered. He pointed to the floor. His tail was twitching back and forth rapidly.  
Damar stood, stupefied. Weyoun held his gaze.  
“What-“  
“I don’t care about the distress signal,” Weyoun had annoyingly guessed what Damar was going to protest with, “Our rescuers are not going to find you delirious with hypothermia, now _sit_ ,”  
“I’m not a trick animal,” Damar protested as he sat down. His teeth chattered and he grimaced.  
“I don’t understand why you’re still so intent on keeping yourself uncomfortable,” Weyoun said, back to monitoring for any signs of approaching vehicles.  
Damar had to admit, that statement had struck something. He didn’t want to think about the answers. “Are you the station’s counselor, now?” he asked.  
Weyoun said nothing. The monitor beeped dutifully as it sent out the distress call at its designated times. Damar could no longer keep himself from shivering.  
“I told you before that I had few memories of the seventh and eighth clones,” he said at last, “...That, unfortunately, isn’t the full truth,”  
Damar was almost grateful for the stray back to unpleasant territory. Pain like this he could deal with.  
“What do you remember?” he asked, knowing the answer.  
“I know why you seem so adamant about keeping your guilt,” Weyoun said.  
“And who’s fault is that?” Damar inquired levelly. 

_“Oh, that’s right,” Weyoun - the seventh incarnation - spoke in that high, calculated voice that Damar often thought was programmed in specifically for torment, “I forgot, you don’t like being_ touched _anymore, at least not from me,”  
“Go away,” Damar hissed.  
Weyoun, in a rare show of mercy, removed his hand from Damar’s shoulder.  
“I have an order to deliver,” he said, “The Founder requests your presence in the briefing room this evening. If you’re not too busy drowning in kanar by that time,”  
“Tell her I’ll be there,”  
“You’ll have to tell her yourself. I’m too busy to be your messenger,”  
Damar growled.  
“It’s a shame you killed my predecessor, he would have been so much nicer,” Weyoun dragged out the word ‘nicer’, making sure it stuck in Damar’s mind as he turned on his heel and walked away. _

“Would you like me to say it’s yours?” Weyoun asked.  
Damar thought it was. He had given the orders that led to the death of Weyoun six. “Isn’t it?”  
“I’ve told you before,” Weyoun said matter-of-factly, “I forgive you,”  
“...Why are we talking about this? Damar asked. He tried to ignore Weyoun’s proximity during this conversation. The Vorta could have almost reached out and brushed Damar’s cheek with his tail. He was sure Weyoun could hear him shaking.  
“What else is there to talk about?” Weyoun finally turned to face Damar. It felt alien to have the Vorta towering over him for a change.  
“We could stay quiet,”  
“...You’re still shivering,”  
“Very perceptive of you,”  
Weyoun knelt down. Damar tried to back away, but he hit the wall.  
“Damar-“  
“Can you stop saying my name like that?”  
Weyoun tilted his head. “Like what?”  
Damar couldn’t respond. How had the conversation gotten here? Why had it gotten here? Why weren’t they both dead? Why couldn’t he still feel his tail?  
“As if it means something to me?” Weyoun answered for him. Damar only stared. “I don’t have to be a counselor to know how to read people, you know that. I’ve told you,”  
“Yeah, yeah,”  
“As long as we’re trapped here on this runabout we might as well take the opportunity to air out our past with one another,”  
“Or we could _not_ ,”  
“Or, we _could_ ,”  
Damar groaned. His heart was threatening to leap from his chest. His emotions were swirling together in a melting pot, one he could almost feel himself drowning in. Anger, fear, hatred. Yet, the most damning one of all still lingered just below the surface. The only one he refused to name.  
Damar pushed himself to his feet, gripping the blankets around him like a shield, returning to the engineering console. Weyoun followed him.  
“You’re really damn stubborn,” Damar said between clenched teeth.  
“That’s rather ironic coming from you,” was the reply, “You’re the one who refuses to forgive himself,”  
Damar could feel himself faltering. He couldn’t right himself in time, “I would if I felt I deserved it,”  
“You don’t feel as if you’ve let yourself suffer enough?”  
“I _killed_ you!” Damar nearly choked on the words, turning to face Weyoun, desperately trying to clutch on to whatever anger he had left, “You were _dead_ , and it was _my fault!_ Don’t you think this is exactly what I _should_ be feeling?”  
“No, I don’t,”  
“But- you know it was my fault, you even said-“  
Weyoun did something unexpected then. He smiled. Damar’s eyes widened as his throat refused to let him speak anymore.  
“I don’t understand,” Weyoun said, shaking his head, “You ask for my opinion then try to change it when I give it to you?”  
His opinion went against everything Damar had expected it to be. He expected the talk to go more like it had with the seventh clone, to be ridiculed. He wasn’t sure if he could validate the truth in his mind.  
“I told you before. I forgive you,”  
“...Alright” Damar said quickly, simply to avoid having to think about it, “Alright let's leave it at that,”  
“Would you really be content with leaving it at that?”  
Damar stopped. Weyoun was looking at him with a mystery in his eyes. The feeling in his chest returned and Damar unwittingly closed what little gap there was between them, then nearly pulled back. Weyoun reached out and held him in place.  
“Damar,” Weyoun whispered. His voice was too gentle, too kind, it threatened to sweep Damar away, “It’s alright,”  
Damar couldn’t move. He merely stared. He was only vaguely aware of Weyoun’s hands on his arms. They were warm. Weyoun’s breath was warm, it puffed along Damar’s chest and felt like home.  
He realized then that he was lost, completely. He loved Weyoun. His body screamed out that he loved Weyoun and it hurt, but he let it. Perhaps a new kind of hurt would be better.  
There was nothing wrong with that, was there?  
He continued to wonder as Weyoun took him into his embrace. It was no longer wartime. The Dominion no longer had a hold in the alpha quadrant. Damar was no longer a soldier. Everything was different now.  
It was alright to love, now.  
Damar noticed that Weyoun had gripped his shirt in his fists and was holding on as if Damar would fade away if he let go. He felt so very selfish then. But he didn’t want to dwell on it, or any thoughts that would distract him from Weyoun.  
Weyoun broke away first, reminding Damar of the broken thermal regulation with terrible suddenness. Weyoun gathered up the blankets which had fallen to the floor at some point and pushed Damar back to the bench in the corner.  
“It’s still much too cold for you,” Weyoun said, “Forget the monitor, your health is more important,”  
Damar thought he had another protest rising, but Weyoun was already wrapping the blankets around him again, and he was so weak and so exhausted that he said nothing. Before he knew it, Weyoun was sitting across his lap, pulling one of the blankets over them both.  
“What-?”  
“Quiet,” Weyoun said, his patience finally showing wear, “I’m keeping you warm,”  
The sensation of Weyoun’s body pressed up against Damar’s own was overwhelming. He would have pushed away if he hadn’t still been shivering.  
“There,” Weyoun said, “Maybe now you can relax,”  
“Hard to relax when you’re so fidgety,” Damar commented.  
“I’m only so fidgety-“ Weyoun replied, shifting his weight again, “-Because it’s hard to get comfortable against these scales of yours,”  
“You’re the one that wanted to sit on me,”  
“You’re the one who’s cold,”  
“I didn’t ask you to _sit on me!_ ”  
“Your hands are freezing,” Weyoun frowned, grasping Damar’s free hand in his. Damar’s other hand was holding Weyoun’s waist to keep him from falling into the wall beside the bench. Weyoun drew Damar’s hand to his chest, holding it there like a fragile artifact. Damar felt Weyoun’s tail sliding around his, pulling it closer to his body.  
Very soon, he found that he could stop himself from shivering.  
Weyoun reached down, his head resting on Damar’s chest, and kissed Damar’s fingers. Damar let him, feeling awkward.  
“I’m-“ he began, “I’m sorry,”  
Weyoun looked up, listening.  
Damar took a deep breath, “I’m sorry I was so difficult. I was so...” he paused, “I was so caught up in how I felt that I... didn’t realize how you felt,”  
Weyoun absently stroked Damar’s hand with a thumb, then said, “When my memories were activated, Odo made sure to give me as much of the sixth Weyoun as possible,” he paused. His tail thumped against Damar’s lazily. “That included emotions. Feelings,” he looked up, “I love you, Corat,”  
Damar couldn’t think. He brought his hand up to lay Weyoun’s head to his chest. His fingers throbbed with newfound warmth.  
“I love you, too,”

**Author's Note:**

> So uh my first upload huh? I had intended my first to be a Quark/Brunt fic but I can’t say Dayoun doesn’t have my whole heart so I hope you had fun and whatever.


End file.
